Moments
by Die Schildkroten
Summary: A series of moments after the end of Twilight Princess, beginning with a heavily revised version of the canon ending. Link x Midna.
1. After Ganondorf

Midna perched on the edge of the precipice, and if she felt the wind at her back she gave no indication of it.

Her legs dangled over the edge, tapering gracefully down to her feet. Beneath them, the tenebrous skyscape of the Twilight Realm descended ad infinitum. Behind her loomed the onyx mass of the Palace of Twilight. In front of her, the future.

It didn't look like much from where she was sitting.

As always, when the mirror opened the air around it felt subtly _wrong_, like a cold spot in a summer stream. Not for the first time it occurred to Midna how very different the two worlds really were.

She knew who was coming through the portal, of course, and she knew that she would have to face him. Would the sentries the Twili Council had posted rout the Hero? She didn't think so. But he wouldn't be expecting them.

"You're standing in my way." _His_ voice, from the bridge that spanned the gap between the Mirror and the Palace. Observational and nothing else.

"What business have you in Twilight?"

"What business of yours? I like what you've done with the place, by the way."

"Levity will not get you past the bridge-"

"No, I was rather counting on gratitude to do that. Not to mention friendship. Why has Midna set guards to block my path?"

"Princess Midna no longer rules Twilight."

"Then who?"

"The Council."

"I couldn't care less. Remove yourself."

"The Council must be told-"

"Oh, tell them. Do. And tell them that when the hand that held the sword that Zant died on the edge of knocked on the door you tried to turn him away like a beggar. I refuse to believe that I'm not welcome here."

"You seem to blame us for our caution. Lest we forget, Ganondorf came through this mirror, and Zant left through it."

"I came through it too, and I seem to remember removing both of those worthies from both of the two worlds."

"Nevertheless-"

"Nevertheless I have a certain authority. It comes from this sword, see how the blade glows? The gods that reign in Twilight have not turned their backs on me, even if you have. You know what the Master Sword can do to you."

"Do not threaten-"

"I hold no allegiance to the Twilight Realms. Only to their princess, whom you do not to the untrained eye appear to be. Remove yourself from my path or by the Triforce I will remove you myself. The choice is yours, gentlemen."

Silence.

Minutes later Link sat down next to her on the edge with a sigh of relief to take the weight off. "Hey, imp," he said in greeting.

Midna wrestled with a number of responses and finally gave in to her curiosity, like she always had. "Why is it," she asked, "that I'm not surprised to see you?"

Link scratched his chin, looked contemplative. "You were there for me," he finally replied, "in my worst moment."

A pause.

"Not that you look particularly wolfish."

A pause. Link sighed.

"They didn't go for it."

Midna kept her head low, eyes unfocused at the ever-changing landscape of Twilight. "They said they had had enough of royalty. They said I didn't do enough to stop Zant before he took over and that I should have dealt with him without- outside help- after. The Council rules Twili now, and as for me? I get the idea that they'd be happier if I disappeared and didn't bother them again." Link caught the sheen of moisture in Midna's one visible eye, saw the light glint off of an exposed fang.

"How much do you want it?" he asked, keeping his voice deceptively casual. Midna glanced up quickly.

"What?"

Link's hand strayed idly to the pommel of his great sword. "Well," he went on, lightly, "I have to be honest, Midna, your people weren't particularly intimidating back when Zant was dropping them out of the sky and I doubt if they've gotten any more intimidating now. From where I'm sitting I can see three entrances to the Palace, none of them guarded- even the sentries have run off. As for the council, they aren't equipped to deal with someone like me. Say the word and I can have you on the Twilight Throne in an hour and a half, two if they put up more of a fight than I expect they will."

Midna said nothing. Link paused and went on.

"But I don't think you want to do it that way, do you."

"It's…"

Midna stopped, got a hold of herself, went on.

"It's the curse that gets to me. They won't take it off. I think I could lose Twilight and still be happy if it wasn't for that. But to spend the rest of my life as this- as a hideous little _imp_-"

She choked it off, looked sharply down. Link wondered if Twili could weep. He wondered if what they wept would be of the same stuff that lubricates human eyes.

He cleared his throat. "I've never found your form- hideous," he said, awkwardly. "In fact I think you're… quite lovely."

It was a step too far and he knew it. The only thing left to do was to cover it up with a grand gesture. Link had one in mind.

"Come away with me."

Midna's eyes shot up. Link was rising to his feet, dusting off his tunic- more from habit than anything else- and all she could think of to say was "Where?"

"The bokoblins," said Link reflectively, "the bokoblins are massing in the east. Possibly under the leadership of our friend with the big blue boar and the horns on the side of his head."

The imp's mind was in turmoil. "But it's only been a few days since you chased him off," she tried. Link looked slightly guilty.

"Well, but sooner or later they'll get their act together. And then we'll ride out against them. Or the King of the Zoras will have an infestation of lizardmen to deal with or something. Or some rich archivist will need us to track down some pre-Hylian artifacts. If we got bored enough we could even go bug-hunting for Agitha, make ourselves some pocket money." Midna was shaking her head. Link hurried on.

"Look, it's changed us, all right? We went to Hell and back together, you and me. I don't think I could go back to herding goats, no matter how ornery. And I'll tell you something else- if you were sitting on that throne, right now, maybe you'd be happy but by this time next week you'd be thinking of the days when you were going somewhere. Midna, you can't go back, even if they would have you. Come away with me. Please."

Midna looked back at the ground. "Why would you have me?" she asked in the smallest voice Link had ever heard her use, even after Lanayru. "They're right, you know. I was too busy playing Princess to deal with Zant. All of this is my fault."

Link glanced up at the sky and took his time before he spoke. "Well," he said reflectively, "you got cursed. You were hunted by shadow monsters and moblins. For a long time your only ally was a very angry wolf. Zant nearly killed you at Lake Hylia and I'm pretty sure Ganondorf finished the job at the castle. Then you came back to where you once were and they told you that they weren't satisfied, that you weren't good enough, that they would have been happier if you hadn't bothered to cross over. You're going to live and die as an imp and after you pass the Council isn't going to be raising any statues of you. If you set out meaning to come back again you've lost worse than _he_ did, and he's dead- deader than Zant, and Zant died hard. Any regrets, Princess?"

Midna was silent for a long moment. "No," she said, finally, and felt something drain away inside her, to be replaced by something else. "No, I don't have any regrets."

Link squatted down next to her and put his face very near to hers. "But _why_?" he asked, low and urgent. Midna pulled away, thought desperately.

"Because-"

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Because it's what I had to do."

When she opened them again Link was smiling at her sadly, the expression alien on his noble features. "Then we're well met, aren't we?" he asked.

Midna was lost at sea, out of her depth, and she knew that this was how _he_ must have felt when he woke up under Hyrule Castle with a long snout and claws instead of fingers. But there wasn't any pain in it- it didn't feel like a transformation. It felt like walking out of a mineshaft after a year in the blackness. It felt like being born.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Well," said Link, "I never said you were particularly bright."

Midna hesitated then shot him her famous toothy grin, and together they walked out of Twilight.

…


	2. Fisher King

It feels good to write. It's been a long time since the last time I just sat down and typed for a few hours.

Here's the second installment in what I'm considering parlaying into a longer series. I doubt I need to repeat the spoiler warning, but I will note that this is a slightly more blatant Link x Midna fic, so those of you for whom that is not your thing might want to avert your eyes, put on some music, and jam your index fingers deeply into your ears.

This takes place some time after the first episode- say three weeks. I can never seem to maintain a plot so I'm not going to bother providing filler in between.

As always, feedback is muchly appreciated. (Vermilion-0 is my friend!)

Moments: Fisher King

Midna's body curved over the rude pillow she slept on to accommodate the overlarge head that rested on Link's mattress, arched as perfectly as if there were a fishhook imbedded in her navel that pulled her softly towards the ceiling.

She was also snoring. It wasn't particularly ladylike.

Link, propping himself up on one elbow next to her on the mattress, wanted to flick water at her until she woke up so he could get to sleep himself. He was damnably tired; every time he came home to Ordon they expected him to work. Sore, too. That last goat had nearly unseated him. It seemed like they were getting more vicious with every passing season.

He wanted to wake her up. He also wanted to run his open palm over the furred mound of her stomach, the nascent rise of her breasts. He wanted to cradle her as he had cradled her after the first attack on Hyrule Castle, after the mad power of her ancestors had left her and she was Midna again, trembling and injured on the flagstones. Obscurely, he also wanted to _go back_, to do it over again, to not fall in love with her.

Far better to lose his heart to some girl at the marketplace, who could take him or leave him as she chose; Midna could find the very idea of loving him disgusting, unthinkable. They were from different worlds once, twice, three times over- man and woman, commoner and nobility, and- inescapably- imp and human.

Impossible to tell her and lose her in the doing. Impossible to hold his tongue and lose her that way. Midna was a puzzle subtler than the one the statues before the Temple had foisted on him and infinitely more threatening.

All his adult life Link had been manipulated by forces greater than him. First, Midna, riding him as a wolf, with her endless jokes and unknowable objectives. Then, in succession, Cor Goron; Rutella's shade; Telma; Renado. Zelda. Ultimately, the goddesses themselves had sped him on his way, and from the safety that falls on heroes when their enemies are defeated and nobody much cares about them anymore all Link could do is wonder if there had ever been a choice- a moment in his journey where he could have left the serene and orderly path that had been set before him and hack his way off into the wilderness. A moment when his actions were not guided by the relentless footsteps of Fate, always five minutes behind him and always on the verge of catching up.

Should he confess his love to Midna? Link knew that there was nobody in the world who he could ask who would understand his dilemma. The question would have to be couched in vague, nebulous terms. It would have to be posed in hypothesis. Nobody in all the sunlit world save perhaps for Zelda knew about his imp, and to Zelda Link was not prepared to speak.

What would the goddesses say, had he a way to ask them? Had they noticed? Would they care? Link had seen Midna shy away from the Triforce, remembered what Lanayru's light had done to her. She was outside the realm of light and paid homage to alien gods. But how deep did the machinations of the goddesses go? How far did their influence extend? Were he and Midna meant to be together? Were they meant to be apart?

How in the world could he ever make the decision alone?

He would get up and put on his clothes; he would go fishing down by the waterwheel. The gillfish would be as awake as he was. Perhaps, in the morning, he would roast his catch over the fire. Perhaps he and Midna would eat breakfast together. He wanted to tell her he loved her but couldn't; it was impossible, it couldn't be done. He wanted to go back but he couldn't do that either. He would get up and put on his clothes. He would go fishing by the light of the moon.

When Midna woke up there was an empty space on the mattress beside her, and a smell like ashes in the air. 


	3. Lot's Wife

My third moment. It didn't take as long as I thought it might.

I'm less confident about this one because I've never felt that I wrote combat particularly well. But it's a part of my story that I felt needed to be told; I hope you'll forgive my clumsiness. It's a bit on the bloody side, and slightly bleaker than my previous entries.

On with the story!

Moments: Lot's Wife

"What are they cooking?"

"Looks like… boar."

"Why do I bother asking?"

"Maybe we'll have time to hew off a steak in passing. Boar meat is actually quite tasty."

"When did you eat boar?"

"I disremember the details. Before your time, certainly. Of course it might have just been the novelty- when you spend your entire life on goat products, the occasional boar is a delicacy."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes. Oh, well, no. Pass the bombs, would you?"

Midna pushed herself up on her elbows and shot Link a glance. "That seems a tad excessive."

The Gerudo Desert was a kiln, baking the pair of them into something new, something refined. They had been tracking one of the last holdout bands of bokoblins across the hardpan for three days now and had caught up with them not far from the Arbiter's Grounds. The goddesses only knew what the bokoblins thought they were turning into.

Midna was hot and itchy, exquisitely sensitive to the movements of fine sand trickling underneath her. There had been no deserts in Twilight, and the last time she had been here she had rode Link's shadow as a thief rides another man's horse. She would have done the same had Link not got the fool idea in his head that he'd need an extra set of hands setting up the ambush. Lying on her belly in the sand, Midna realized how little idea she had of the capabilities of this body- even in the days after the fall of Ganondorf it was new to her. She had scarcely experienced the sunlit world. Only a few achingly strange moments of exposure, half-remembered sense memories from the back of a wolf.

Link appeared to be giving what she had said serious thought. "You know," he said finally, easing his pull on the bowstring, "I don't know that I believe there's any such thing."

Her curiosity was piqued, despite herself. "You don't believe there's such a thing as 'excessive'?"

"Well. Maybe if you have limited resources. But we really don't- I mean, we're not going to run out of bombs anytime soon. Even if we did we could warp to Kakariko and buy more. Saving Hyrule has made me unbelievably wealthy- why shouldn't I be generous with my bomb arrows?" Link loosened the string entirely. "When you have a clear objective and no risk of escalation, why not go the extra mile?"

Midna bared her mismatched fangs. "I've got sand in places I never knew I _had_ in this body, Link. Quit wasting time or I'll hide scorpions in your bedroll tonight, I swear I will."

Link grinned- goddesses, he was beautiful- and turned back to their quarry, a sixteenth of a mile away down a shallow embankment. Sighting down the shaft of the arrow, he let fly. 

A hundred yards away one boar erupted into flames with a deafening crack and the rest of them wisely chose that moment to seek better fortunes and more generous climes elsewhere. The bokoblin camp erupted into exactly the sort of chaos they had been hoping for as four very unhappy swine came barreling through it, whipping their great shaggy heads from side to side and smashing tents and campfires into splinters with their tusks.

Midna let the powers granted her by her station flow through her body, felt the magic as a heaviness at the pit of her stomach. Sand pattered from the curves of her body as she rose, weightless, into the thin desert air. Link looked up at her with mild curiosity. Midna flashed him a toothy grin, shrugged, and bulleted along down the hill.

She heard Link curse behind her, heard him stagger to his feet and take off after her; let him worry. She was the Twilight Princess, after all, and no bokoblin arrow could pierce the thickness of a shadow. Three days she had been agonizingly conscious of the sensitivities and frailties of her new-formed flesh; now she would see what it was capable of.

If Link was too slow to keep up, all the better; it would serve him right for making her lie in the sand.

Link exploded to his feet and immediately fell as the sand shifted under his boots; after skidding ten feet down the slope he was able to roll into a jerky, precarious run. He didn't remember drawing his sword but there it was, undeniably drawn. The familiar heft of it failed to comfort him. With a blade in his hand he was invincible, but there was Midna, fifty feet ahead and gaining, and fifty bokoblins who had no means of escape and no options left to them. He should have given them time to fold tents and run; he should have chased them until their boars dropped dead of exhaustion and they were too tired to put up much resistance. Now they were hungry, and cornered, and dangerous; a rat in the trap will bite your finger nine times out of ten.

A flight of flaming arrows arched through the cloudless sky; Midna evaded them with queenly disdain and they buried themselves in the gritty sand. Link simply bashed them out of the air with the flat of his sword and kept running. It was too late, of course. Midna had broken through the front lines.

The twisted little goblins flinched away from her and she reveled in their fear; gods, it had been so long. With a flip of the great glowing arm that sprung from her crown of stone she snatched up an archer and tossed him with casual force into a cluster of macemen, paused to watch the effect before sending another high into the air with a precise burst of magic, raveled the arm into spiked tendrils and piercing a third, a fourth, a fifth, not seeing the sixth as it sprang from cover with a curved sword and the pitted steel bit into the virgin meat of her shoulder. The agonized pitch of Midna's howl almost, but did not quite, eclipse Link's rage.

There was a seething blackness on the edges of his vision. There was a roar of blood in his ears. Link abandoned caution and flung himself down the slope, so fast it felt like flying, and when he hit the mob he swung his sword like a woodsman swings his axe. His shield lay forgotten in the sand; his posture did not lend itself to defense. Link knew only that they had hurt Midna, and so each and every one of them was going to die in blood and terror. His own safety was entirely irrelevant. Against the frenzy of his wrath no foe could stand.

Wielding the Master Sword in both hands he hacked through the bokoblin waves, splintering ribs and sating the desert's thirst with the thick blood of his enemies. A mace thudded against his arm; he spun and thrust the blade into a scawny green chest. An arrow cut his cheek and he decapitated the archer with a clean backhand. Bokoblins on the edges cut and run; he barely noticed them as he fought his way to her side, leaving a trail of bodies and a chorus of agonized cries in his wake. There was no finesse in this, no subtlety. There was only Link and the bokoblins, dead men walking, and what came into his path he killed. 

Half of them were dead or dying by the time the last dedicated knot of defenders decided they had had enough and made for the parched safety of the deeper desert. Link, staggering from a slash to his calf, cut two of them down even as they turned to run and would have charged after them if the bokoblin who had hurt Midna had not slipped in behind him and drew a line of fire down his back with his rusted sword. Link came around with a boar's madness in his eyes and did not stop to think before he smashed his fist, wrapped around the heavy tang of the Master Sword, into the bokoblin's jaw. He went down hard and Link thrust the blade into his quivering body, drew it out, thrust it in again, drew it out, and was about to drive it home a third time when Midna seized his sword arm with her one good hand and tugged frantically at him.

"Link, stop!" she was saying. "He's dead! They're all dead!"

He turned to her with his sword in his hand and when he saw the fear in her eyes the anger left him. Dully he knelt beside the bokoblin he had killed, still staring up at the sky. The flames that ruled them went out when they were dead; only a faint glow behind the eyes betrayed them for the once-living. With a curious gentleness Link reached down and closed his eyes.

Midna nursed her wounded shoulder. "Gods, Link," she said wonderingly, "I mean, I know you don't believe in excess, but wasn't all that a little bit-"

The rage boiled up in him again and his fingers clenched tight as a secret on the grip of his sword. "You stupid-" he cried, "What the hell did you think you were doing? They could have killed you!" Midna was staring up at him with an unreadable look in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, after a long silence. "I surely didn't mean to shout. It was just- I didn't know what I would have done- if- I'm sorry."

"Midna?" he said, a while on. "Midna, will you not talk to me?"

Silence poured in to fill the emptiness of the desert as they started out along the long road back.

. . . 


	4. Coronation

I want to start off by thanking you all. I've gotten some incredibly supportive feedback and that's always a good thing- if it wasn't for all of you just being here I'd probably never have written the first one, and if it wasn't for your support I doubt I'd have bothered to write a second. As it is I've stayed up late four nights in a row writing installments, and I'm loving every minute of it. You all are good people.

Anyways, I'm beginning to get a feel for the thread of the plot- and yes, there is actually going to be one. I'm as surprised as you are. This takes place not long after the last moment, and takes a twist near the end that actually came as sort of a surprise to me. In the end I just decided that the story wouldn't work without it, dramatically speaking.

As always, I appreciate any feedback you can give me on my work. Thanks again for reading.

Moments: Coronation

"Marry me."

The request was so unexpected, so fundamentally bizarre and unanticipated, that Link caught himself soberly considering it on its own merits. There would be benefits, and not only to him. He could see the possibilities marching on through his head like the vanguard of a rebel army, heralding a dimly foreseen future.

Nevertheless, one had to stick to one's principles. What else was left to him?"

"I don't love you," Link replied honestly. "I don't even particularly like you. What respect I have for you is tempered by how little help you were to me when I needed you."

Princess Zelda frowned coolly. Above the throne, the goddesses looked down with marble disdain from their places about the Triforce. Link wondered idly if they were upset with her for proposing or him for refusing before dismissing the line of inquiry as unnecessarily inane.

"I was incapacitated," she explained, as if he hadn't known. "first by the Zant's Twili and then by Ganondorf personally. There was little enough I could have done."

"You could have given your army proper training," noted Link, "before. You could have set up a functioning government. Things fell apart while you were gone, did you know that? That one bridge that fell in- I paid for the repairs myself. Out of my own pocket, you might say. For a while there Malo was more or less running your economy, and if you want to know what scares me the most in hindsight it's that particular fact. To be frank, princess, I was very bitter for a long time about how much of my war could have been prevented if you had been doing your job."

Zelda narrowed her eyes and Link cursed himself for toeing the line. It was easy to forget how truly dangerous the princess was.

"I could have you arrested, you know," she said.

"Has the house of kings grown so degenerate?" asked Link curiously. "I gave you your throne back. I think I'm entitled to be critical of what you've done with it."

"If I've been doing such a poor job, then marry me. As king you'd be commander of the army and you'd be free to enact whatever changes to the civil government as you'd see fit, as long as they didn't compromise my personal agenda."

"Which would be?"

"None of your business."

"I fail to see what benefit you get out of it."

"I have been a princess for a long, long time, Link," she replied, wearily, without rancor. "I'd like to be a Queen before I die."

Link scowled. "I don't buy it. If you wanted a husband you'd have the whole of the nobility to choose from, and practically any one of them would be easier to control than _me_. Hell, you could marry Ralis and bring the Zoras in under the Hylian banner. You have to know I won't fight for you. I fail to see why you'd be interested."

"Ralis isn't the hero who cut down Ganondorf and pushed the Twilight back into Midna's world. Besides, there's a precedent. The Hero of Time-"

"Fairy tale endings!" he cried scornfully. "I've met the Great Fairies, princess, and they were wantons with as little loyalty to the land and the kingdom as you have to the city in the sky. No, you'll not get me that way. If this were a fairy tale you would be as wise as you were lovely and your father would still be alive to give you away."

"And if this were a fairy tale," continued Zelda smoothly, "then we'd be marrying for love, and I believe you've already made your lack of interest in _that_ quite clear. Forget about my motives for a moment-"

"It would be easier to forget them if I knew what they were-"

"-and think about your own best interests."

"Which are?"

"Oh, give it up, Link," said Zelda. "I don't think there's anything in the world you want _less_ than another crisis like the one that gave Ganondorf back to the sunlit world. So you think I messed it up the first time around? Fine. This time, _you_ can pay attention to the signs, and _you_ can investigate every disturbance. With the royal treasury at your disposal and the army watching your back."

Link was suddenly immeasurably tired. "I've done this once before, princess," he said. "I don't want to be the hero anymore. There's a kid in Ordon who shows some promise-"

"And you'd do to him what Midna did to you? Where is your imp, by the way?"

There was a moment of silence, pregnant with grief. 

"She…" said Link carefully "…elected to remain in Ordon. She was injured in the desert." He paused. "I've been fighting monsters for a long time, princess. Somewhere along the line it stopped being important to me to pick up the pieces afterwards. You can have Colin."

"Link, wait." There was concern on Zelda's face, pain on her regal, slightly sharp features. "We don't have to fight about this. It's too important to leave no room for negotiations. What do you want?"

The ancient stone halls of Zelda's throne room stretched out before him, but he wasn't seeing them. He was seeing a sly heart-shaped face, one eye picked out in autumnal shades of red and orange, sleek limbs manacled with glowing arabesques. He was seeing blue-black fur, a trim belly. Link was seeing what he couldn't have and the knowledge of that was more terrible than any enemy he had ever faced, more appalling than the humping, writhing, monstrous armies of Twilight.

He squeezed his eyes shut until he couldn't see her anymore and then he opened them again. The green vista of Hyrule rolled out before him like a carpet from the great portico of Zelda's castle. "What I want," he said, "you can't give me."

He did not hear her calling after him, or notice how the armored guards that bracketed the doors tensed, waiting for orders to bar his way, haul him off to the dungeons, sacrifice their lives to slow him down for one moment more. Supplicants and petitioners lined the stairwell, seeking audience with a princess who would never be a queen. Link silently wished them well on their errands and then changed his mind, wished them failure like he had failed, disappointment to match the monumental heights of his disappointment.

If Midna was still in Ordon he didn't know about it. He had awoken two mornings earlier to find her gone. What scant possessions and keepsakes she had gathered from her time in the sunlit world were missing- a stone chip hewn from a faceless statue, the bleached and boiled skeleton of the fish he had cooked for her.

She had taken things that belonged to him as well- his old cloth wrap, an artifact from the time before she had entered his life. On the landing, a bleary picture of him astride Epona- the only picture of himself that he had- was lying facedown on the table, out of its frame. Link was at a loss as to the significance of this. Did she expect to see him again? Could he hope they would be reconciled? Or had she taken the cloth simply to remind her of a person who had been briefly in her life and was in her life no more? There was no way of knowing. Midna's intentions remained as much of a mystery as they had been the hour of their meeting.

He had looked for her, calling out her name into the forest until his voice was hoarse and his face was numb with shouting, but if she had been there- flitting between the trees, riding on the shadows of the clouds- she had not answered him. He couldn't track her, not as a man. Midna smelled of dust and, faintly, of cinnamon. Her aroma lingered in his empty house until he could not bear it any longer and rode out to answer Zelda's summons.

He had reached the outskirts of Castle Town. Epona nickered nearby, grazing on the grass of the field. He let her be while he tried to clear his thoughts to the point where he could make a decision.

If he rode out straight along the path, the road would take him back to Ordon Village. He would fish in the early mornings, do his share of the eternal work of the ranch. He would live simply and quietly with his regrets. Perhaps, in time, he would take a wife. When he died they would bury him out by the pumpkin fields where they had laid the parents he had never known to rest. Or perhaps he would marry Zelda, train with the army, grow old in ermine robes with the heavy weight of the crown on his brow. Then he would be buried in the suffocating splendor of the royal crypts, with a golden sword in his hand that would remain bright and perfect forever even as his body dredged up the skeleton beneath.

If he rode out away from the road he would search for Midna, comb the world for a quarry that could make itself invisible and as insubstantial as the ebb and flow of the oceans of air that surrounded him. He would cry out her name in the rocky, echoing warrens of the Goron caverns and seek her face at the bottom of the lake, where the blind fish swam and the shipwrecks rotted into the numbing coldness of the water. If they knew her in Twilight he would go to Twilight and make them tell him where she was. It was no great task, not to Link, who had never surrendered to anyone or anything in his life. He knew he could do it. He would find Midna and he would tell her that he loved her.

He would keep to the road or stray from it. There were no other options, no shades of possibility. One path led, irreversibly, to his death. He didn't know about the other. With Midna nothing was certain.

On the road or off of it. Zelda or Midna. Link stood at the parting of the ways and knew that no man or god would tell him where to go next. Perhaps he had been abandoned. Perhaps he had left the path the goddesses had laid down for him and his actions were no longer of any importance to anyone aside from himself.

He found the idea intoxicating.

At length, he saddled Epona and rode off along the path he had chosen. He did not look back as he rode away.

. . . 


	5. Rendezvous With Death

I have to apologize for this one on a number of levels. For one, it's late- I really did mean to update once a night, but this particular moment defeated me on that. I spent two days running trying to get it right.

The second thing that I have to apologize for is that I am dismally sure that I failed. I knew when I was writing it that the moment had to be there, but I feel like I forced it- wrote it for plot reasons rather than because it felt write. Consequentially I am not very pleased with it. I am sorry. Hopefully the next one will be better; if I could have written that one without first writing this, I would have.

Anyways. Tell me what you think.

Moments: Rendezvous

"No," said Renado, lighting tapers in the sanctuary at Kakariko. He carefully set down his burning splint and looked Link in the eye. "No, I haven't seen the creature you're looking for. That doesn't mean it- she- isn't here- life is beginning to return to Kakariko. I've been busy these past few weeks. But had I seen her, I would remember- and I would let you know."

"Thank you," said Link, absently, already planning his next route. If Renado couldn't help him, who then could he turn to? Ralis, he decided. If one of his people had seen Midna, the Zora prince would know about it. He would stop in the hotel and change into the armored tunic that Rutella had given him. He would make his way to the prince's side and remind him that he ruled at Link's pleasure.

"Link," Renado said, not breaking his gaze. "be careful. You're meddling with the spirit realms and that has consequences. Heed an old shaman. Don't search too hard. You might actually find what you're looking for."

Link stood quietly in the fragmentary light of the sanctuary, remembering. Finally he half-smiled and walked over to the door.

"You were standing- there," he said, over his shoulder, "And Barnes was over there, by the window. He was talking about the monsters that killed the townsfolk. He said that the sanctuary wouldn't protect you if they decided to attack. Beth started crying and Barnes looked guilty. Colin tried to calm her down, to comfort her. He said-"

Renado closed his eyes.

"-he said that Link was coming to save you."

"Link," began the shaman, but Link cut him off.

"You've been a friend to me, Renado. Thank you."

The door opened, closed. When Renado opened his eyes again he was alone in the room.

* * *

"I'm not sure I understand," said Ralis. "You're not going to kill her?"

"No," said Link, levelly. "I'm not."

Ralis's glare was a hard green shine in the dappled light of Zora's Domain. "Shadow creatures _executed_ my mother and dammed the very headwaters of Zora's River. The resulting drought had profound repercussions throughout Hyrule. This is to say nothing of what they did to my people. I don't know where she is and if I did I wouldn't tell you."

This had been a bad idea. It was becoming more obvious with every passing moment that Link was losing face with the Zora merely by asking the favor, and while the Zora had never been his most reliable allies he had few enough that fell into that category to risk alienating even one of them.

Nevertheless, it was not in his nature to concede the point.

"I saved your life," said Link, "and I'm scratching my head as to why I would do that if I didn't have your best interests at heart. The Twili I'm following was neither a part of nor a supporter of the invasion. In fact, she saved my life before we ever met, as I saved yours. I think I've earned your trust, Ralis. Give me what I need."

"What's a Twili?" snapped Ralis petulantly. "If that's what you call the shadow monsters then I see no reason to help you help one of _them_. What you don't seem to understand is that we are at war, Link, whether they're here to fight it or not. You're either with us or you're with them, against us."

"Don't ask me to make that decision, Ralis."

"Well, why shouldn't I?"

Link lost all patience.

"Because, my prince," he growled, "I'll not stand by those too proud to stand by me." He drew his sword.

Behind him, Zoras stampeded away from the throne room and Ralis' bodyguards fought their way through the tumult, shoving and elbowing to their prince's side. Ralis' eyes were wide and bulging with disbelief. Link, in the eye of the hurricane, had serenity enough to disregard the chaos erupting around him.

"When Zora remembers who his friends are," he said formally, "He will know where I can be found. You're losing the war."

Link turned and executed a perfect dive into the central pool, letting the current catch him and pull him down towards the waterfall. Ralis would come to his senses. Or he wouldn't. Either way it was best to take his leave, now, before the prince had time to make any fatal mistakes. Ralis hadn't known anything anyways.

* * *

The Twili, thought Link, were made for democracy. He had never been able to tell them apart.

A sea of uniform patterns, glowing eyes set in featureless faces, and the unique coloration that so resembled a barrister's robe- they were the perfect mob, the ideal rabble. Link had never had much patience for consensus, himself. He felt that he was wasting his time.

All the same, he smiled his golden smile and addressed the Council.

"Midna has gone missing," he said conversationally, "more than a week ago. I want to find her and I think you might perhaps be willing to help me. You owe me a favor, after all. Help me find her and it's square between us; I'll go my way and trouble you no more."

Silence is never so oppressive as when there are many mouths available to speak. Every mute element of a greater whole is like another fisherman's weight balanced perfectly on your shoulders, the burden compounding momentarily until-

"Help me find her," said Link, "And I'll owe _you_ a favor, how's that? One boon, payable by me to you at a time and date of your choosing, and I just know you can find somewhere to fit me in. I know you still have interests in the sunlit world. One favor. My considerable skills at your disposal." Silence.

"Help me find her," said Link "And I will serve Twilight for a period of one year as your agent in the waking world. I have no agenda beyond locating Midna and I couldn't care less what your agenda is if you'll help me accomplish that goal. You know that Zelda isn't equipped to deal with me."

"Three years," he said, a moment later. "Seven years."

"Please," said Link, "I love her."

Silence. His visage darkened.

"Help me find her," he said after a moment, "because if you don't and I find out later that you knew where she was, it will be war between us for ever and aye until either I am dead or the Council at Twilight has fallen. Help me find her because you don't dare not to. Help me find her because you're afraid of what I can do and we both know it and without her I have no reason to go on outside of revenge. All right? Help me find her because if you don't-"

A clotted sigh, rattling and phlegmy in the echoing vastness of the council chambers. "Why did we know it would come down to threats?" said the Twili at the forefront of the council, and for a moment Link thought he spoke in the high sweet tonalities of the usurper king.

"I- did not mean to offend the council," said Link grudgingly, as if each word were being dredged up from the murky seabed of his being- but Midna was more important than his pride. "I-"

The Twili sighed again. The hairs stood up on Link's neck. "I am Dusm, the Voice of the Council," it said. "And I do not know where Midna- I do not use her title because Twilight no longer recognizes the validity of the Royal Family- may be, or what she may be doing. I would know these things if she had remained in Twilight. She did not. Consequentially your presence here is both unnecessary and unwelcome, as is your use of the Mirror, an artifact belonging to the people. We permit your presence here because of your role in certain services rendered to Twilight-"

"You permit my presence because only the rightful queen can destroy the Mirror, and I didn't kill Zant on your behalf."

Dusm went on, heedless. "-but we will not tolerate your meddling in the affairs of the people. The next time you come before this Council to negotiate with your sword in your hand we will not wait for you to begin the war."

"Then come," Link wanted to say but did not say, "when you think you're ready. I'll be waiting." Instead, he turned and left without so much as another word.

It was rude of him, but he wasn't burning any bridges. That had always been Midna's job. Somehow, without her, he didn't have the heart.

* * *

He flung himself around the canyon dogleg on the back of a boar, urging his steed on with great blows to the haunches. But he knew that the animal was reaching the last of his formidable endurance. He had been outmaneuvered, cut off. Again. This time he would not leave the canyon. Behind him he heard the low susurrus of air that meant he was going to die.

Link came charging down the gully on horseback, swinging his ball and chain above him as he rode, and as it dawned on the bokoblin what his brother and his nemesis was going to do with it he felt a wave of terror overwhelm the stout fortifications of his heart. With a low cry he was going faster, faster, faster through the canyon, the stone walls blurring into a streak of red, running his boar so hard its porcine heart might explode in its breast from the exertion- he had seen it happen before, once, a long time ago.

Link drew level with him and the first thought that he had was that Link was looking good, better than he had looked since their first battle. His second thought was that Link's stance in the saddle was all wrong- too loose, without the rigidity that made mounted combat feasible. His third thought, as Link caught the ball in his arms and stood easily up in the stirrups, was to congratulate himself- after twenty-odd years at arms, the world still had the capacity to surprise him.

Link, left foot steady in the stirrup, caught his right boot against the saddle and flung himself gracelessly through the air. When he struck the bokoblin the impact nearly broke his collarbone and his great swinging weight was torn from his army by the relentless shove of inertia. It was enough. He felt gravity catch up with a sickening lurch as his enemy fell, arms wheeling, from the saddle, heard the clamor of crude iron armor against the stony ground.

The bokoblin's mailed hand shot to the hilt of his cleaver, but Link was there, driving his boot into the green flesh of his wrist. He heard a snap and saw his opponent's face slacken in pain. He brought the tip of his sword to the leathery flesh of the warlord's neck.

"I don't have to kill you," said Link, "although the goddesses know I should. You're the only one that ever came close. But I'll let you live today, if you tell me what I want to know."

The bokoblin's face contorted in dumb fury as the sound of hoofbeats died away down the ravine. "I don't know Twilight-"

The sword withdrew and jabbed him viciously above the heart. "Don't you dare waste my time- you were taking your orders from Zant during the invasion and we both know it. Where is she? I swear to god I'll cut your filthy throat-"

He had had enough. With a titanic effort he raised his cumbersome head and looked Link in the eye. "Stage," he said rapidly. "Old stage, stone pillars, near Castle Town- statue, old statue, on a high place. Ancient place. She killed two of my boys there, tore them apart and the rest went running. Two days ago. Don't know if she's still there and that's _all that I know_, now let me up."

A lessening of weight, the removal of a sword. The bokoblin sat up, ground his pudgy hand against his broken wrist, glared in anger. "Would've told you."

"You _ran_."

"Could've caught me."

Curiosity overcame Link and he looked back at his enemy, fat and dangerous on the ground. "What was your name?" he asked. "I never knew."

"Because I never tell you."

Link narrowed his eyes, turned to leave.

The warlord felt anguish like a fist to the belly. Link had four times bested him in battle. "I fight for the strongest," he had told him, and he had not lied then.

He would not lie now. "Link," he called.

Link did not turn around. "What is it?"

"You hurry."

"Why?"

"Because you found me second."

Link stood there for the length of a heartbeat as the bokoblin's meaning stole over him.

Then he was running.


	6. So On We Worked And Waited For The Light

. . .

Moment: So On We Worked And Waited For The Light

In the days of the Hero the ruins had been a theatre, with the vast glittering span of Lake Hylia and the Great Bridge of Hyrule as a backdrop to dramas no less epic. The themes, invariably, were the exploits and tragedies of a past that was dimly remembered even then. Midna, who wore a Fused Shadow of unimaginably ancient provenance upon her head, found the antique history of place oddly comforting. 

She had come here from Ordon because it was the only path left to her after the desert and the things she had heard there. Had she never been given any reason to believe that Link loved her- was capable of loving her- she could have stayed cheerfully by his side forever. But the things he had done that day, the porcine glint of rage behind his neutral expression-

The _not knowing_ was what made it unbearable. A sliver of doubt had wormed its way into her mind and, gradually, consumed her. He loved her or he didn't. The question, once asked, could never be taken back; she would have to live with the consequences of asking it. Zant and desperation had burned most of her cowardice away but there was enough left in Midna to leave her paralyzed. She had to know and at the same time couldn't know, needed to ask the question and knew she never could. It was too much for her; she gathered the things that she owned and the things she could not bear to part with and stole away to rest her body in a far land, under a stranger sky.

More and more she remained in her physical form, disdaining danger and sleeping beneath the stars. One night she spent under a fallen tree, soaked and shivering and cut to the bone by a squall that had broken with a sound like thunder over the vast greenness of Hyrule Field. Another she feasted on birdflesh, slow-roasted over a burning leafpile. The frailties and exultations of the flesh were changing her, slowly, into something that might be worthy of happiness, someone able to tell a friend she loved him.

At first she fretted constantly over the danger- she recalled, faintly, the slice of a steel blade through her shoulder, and her hand strayed from time to time to a wound not yet wholly healed. But as time wore on and she met no enemies more perilous than a raiding party of Bokoblins she easily sent packing, the concern began to drain away. If the solidity of her body made her vulnerable, her anonymity made her sacrosanct, inviolable. Nobody knew who she was anymore. Nobody would recognize her face. Midna was held up and bolstered by the armor worn by the forgotten, the inconsequential, and the petty.

She had no reason to believe that she was being hunted.

Now, in the crisp clear night of her eleventh day, she lay on her back on the cold flagstones and watched the ballet of the heavens as they wheeled above her. The cobbles on which actors had performed their stylized and rigidly choreographed dance in ages before Twilight had come into the sunlit lands pressed uncomfortably into her back, but she accepted that small discomfort as the consequence of a greater pleasure and was still.

The stars comforted her in the same way that the stage did; they whispered that her actions had no implications beyond her lifespan and reminded her that what mistakes she made would be forgotten, were only temporary.

Then a pike smashed the cobblestone by her head and Midna was fighting for her life.

. . .

Five of them, wearing long black cloaks with cowls over their faces. Five, with daggers strapped to their sides and long pikes to keep the dusk beast away. A cloud passed over the moon, denying Midna the refuge of shadow; suddenly, the night was very black.

Link's legs felt as if they had been carved from a single block of marble, prescient of the inevitable monument. His lungs were full of fire that fed off of every short, hungry gasp he took. He ached to the very center of his being but his mind was alive and racing in its burning cradle.

Too tall to be bokoblins and they moved too fluidlu for guards of the realm. Twili? No. Sorcerors? There were always dabblers in the unspeakable arts, initiates into the forbidden, and the scraps of arcane lore Midna's ancestors had left behind- such remnants as the gods on high had been unable to eradicate- had never faded into their final obscurity of their creators. The power of the Twili would be a tempting target- but how would they have found out? Who had told them?

Who had betrayed him?

Then a tall assailant snapped a weighted net over his imp and further consideration became impossible. With a single fluid motion Link nocked an arrow to his bow and let fly. The missile punched into the center of a swirling cloak and sent the bastard swooning to the cobblestones with a steel blade biting at his guts.

The rage was too terrible to be born. Link flung the bow away and came bounding down the stairs, his great sword singing in his hand.

Midna saw her attacker pitch backwards, heard the crack of his skull against the rock, and wondered why she had ever thought she could get away. There were the men who had struck out against her, ominous in their swirling cloaks, and there was the one that Link had killed, and there was the man she loved, coming down the stairs so fast he looked as if he were flying. He was daring and courageous and had never in life been defeated. 

In that moment she despaired that he would ever be hers. How could the Hero, champion and survivor of a hundred life-or-death battles and a hundred sworn enemies, be brought low at length by anything so banal as love?

But she loved him now, as he came flying down the balustrades like a storybook angel with a flaming sword, risking all that he had and all that he was for a woman who had been too afraid to tell him the truth.

Link came running with murder writ large on his face.

Caught off guard, the second cloak went down under his weight. Link bounded to his feet and spun to administer the coup-de-grace and did not see the graceful fingers arch into agonized claws and then relax in death. He was distracted by the knife that blossomed in his arm.

The third one was no dilettante; he had used the slaughter of his brother-in-arms for a distraction, tossed his knife when Link was ill-prepared to deflect it. With an agonized hiss Link tore his sword from his enemy's cooling body and charged, right arm cradled uselessly to his side; the only hope now was to end it, quickly, before any real resistance could be mounted. The knife-thrower saw him coming, raised his pike to block.

Link's sword smashed through the weapon and struck a mortal blow to the cloak behind it. Blood, horribly black in the faint starlight, gushed from a fearsome wound as the man fell to his knees and then flat on his face in a gruesome parody of slumber. By the time his body hit the ground Link was on the move.

The fourth was armed as the first had been, and Link barely had time to react before the net was rippling out over him, dragging his arms down and provoking a burst of pain from his wounded right. Link saw his enemy moving in for the kill, dagger at the ready, and planted a boot in the loose coils of rope. He brought his sword up, cutting the net in half and feinting right just in time to escape a second wounding. Off-balance, the net-thrower had no time to prepare himself for the Master Sword before it bit lethally into his neck and even the blackness of the night was swallowed by a deeper darkness.

Utter silence reigned on the blood-soaked stage. Link sheathed his sword and turned to Midna, cowering wide-eyed under the thick mesh of the net.

"Midna-"

There had been five of them.

The sound of a pike, darting through the air.

Link caught the pike one-handed and tore it from the hands of its wielder, whipped it through the air as if it were a club. The thick handle struck flesh with a meaty thud and sent the fifth cloak falling backwards, cowl slipping down as he hit a stone wall and slid to the ground like a punch-drunk boxer. In that moment the moon came out from behind the clouds with murderous complicity. By the milky light Link saw the face of his enemy.

The long wattles of flesh that hung down on either side of his pale face were still slightly plump, lacking the bladed look that among the Zora presages maturity. His eyes were the brilliant green of a child emperor's. The skin above them was studded with tiny jewels that made a broad vee down his forehead. Terror was present in his quaking hands, his staring eyes, and in that moment Link felt almost brotherly.

"You're a Zora," he said, with a surprising gentleness. The Zora nodded frantically.

"Yes," he said.

"Ralis sent you."

"Yes."

Link hesitated. "Your friends-"

"Ralis sent them too."

"No, I understand. They're not guards, though."

"No."

"So this was a planned action. You're a soldier of Zora."

The Zora wavered, then nodded his head, making his wattles quiver. "Yes."

Link paused. "Do you _like_ being a soldier?"

"I thought-" said the Zora "I thought it would make my family proud."

"Do you think it did?"

"Yes," said the Zora. "I think." There was a long silence, and then Link leaned the pike gently against a broken jut of pillar. He dropped to one knee before the Zora and looked deep into his fear-bright eyes.

"Go back to Ralis," he said, "and tell him that I've chosen my side. Can you remember that?"

The Zora hesitated. "Yes," he said.

"And tell him- tell him-" said Link, and paused. "No. Just… tell him what I said."

A pause. 

"I'm sorry about your friends."

"Yes," said the Zora. He glanced around at the carnage the human in the green tunic had dealt out with an unshaking hand and knew that he would not remain in his Prince's service. He would deliver the message and decamp, quietly, into the night. He would go to Lake Hylia, where the old women Zora lounged in the warm shallows; he would live out his life in safety. With a last fearful glance behind him he darted up the stairway and melded with the night.

Link looked up at the stars with a funny expression on his face. Almost absently, he picked up the pike again and with a sudden ferocity dashed it to pieces against the pillar. He turned to Midna, now fumbling off the net. His boots were quiet as whispers against the cobblestones as he walked over to her. There was a suspense in the air, tightly wound as a baited breath.

"I love you," said Link, and the breath came out. Midna's eye widened into a perfect circle. Her mouth opened and closed; for once in her life she had no words to say. Link closed his eyes.

"Will you come back to Ordon with me?" he asked without opening them. "In the morning I'll explain, but I'm sorely tried and if I had to spend another night without you I don't know that I could bear it. I'm sorry about the desert. I'm sorry about everything. Please-"

He hesitated, plunged on.

"Please. Come back to me."

She took his hand in hers by the waning light of the moon. 


	7. Who Watches Over Me

The final moment in a story that turned out to be about twice again as long as I ever imagined. And that's all you'll get from me until you've read it.

. . .

Moments: Who Watches Over Me

Midna awoke with a name on her lips and opened her eyes to rough wooden walls, mismatched blue plates, a cerulean blanket draped over the skylight far, far above. Link's house was oddly cozy in light of the man who owned it. There were touches, here and there, to suggest a martial past- a wooden shield, hung over the door; the Master Sword, leaning against the oven.

The last struck a chord with her, and she sat up, glancing around. Link was gone, and that in itself was remarkable; the man she loved (and who loved her) had never, in her experience, ventured outside his house unarmed-

Link loved her. Recollection stuck Midna like the sting of a wasp and made further thought impossible. She sank back down to the pillow and stared at the sky.

Link loved her. Part of the story she knew already, or had pieced together- after she left he had gone and seen Ralis at the very least and more than likely he had gone to see others among his old allies. She supposed she hadn't really thought about whether or not he was looking for her. She supposed she hadn't really wanted to know the answer.

There was a knock on the door and Midna scrambled out of Link's bed, looked desperately around for a shadow to hide in. But when the door opened there was only Link on the other side of it, holding a plump gillfish up like a peace offering.

"Hello," he said. "I thought we could talk."

Morning in Ordon. Midna sitting by the oven, tentatively picking at a roast gillfish. Link standing, not facing her, telling his story. His cap is bunched up in his left hand; his right is in constant motion, gesturing and waving, moving through the still air like a leaf caught in a capricious current of the wind. There's a fresh bandage on his shoulder; he hasn't been to the healing spring. Midna worries about him.

"…Zelda's angry at me, of course," he was saying, "It's never a good idea to blow off a princess- I learned that lesson early."

Nothing. Perhaps the issue of Midna's lost standing was a sensitive one? Link hurried on.

"Our old friend the warlord ended up being the missing link," he said, "although I had to knock him down and break his wrist before he would tell me anything. How Ralis found him I have no earthly notion. I'm sorry about that, by the way. I knew he was hurting but I had no idea he would take such a drastic step. With any luck that's as far as he'll be willing to take it- he has to know he can't move against me directly. I wish he hadn't done it. But there's a lot of things I wish hadn't happened, and to this point my wishing hasn't done a whole hell of a lot of good-"

He was babbling. Midna interrupted him.

"How long have you known?" she asked, her voice quiet in the sudden silence.

Link stopped talking. His hand drifted gently back to his side. Idly he wondered how much Midna suspected.

"Since Lanayru," he said in a softer tone. "Anyways that was when I first started thinking about it. It wasn't personal before- do you understand that? I meant to see Zant dead but I had no pressing reason to want to kill him myself beyond the purely altruistic. When he hurt you-"

A contemplative silence. Finally Link went on.

"-When he hurt you I suddenly had no long-term objectives beyond tearing out his throat. Love didn't come into it at that point, I think. Things are simpler through the eyes of a wolf. The wolf didn't even need to think about it. Maybe he knew before I did- I mean I knew before I did." Link stopped and shook his head to clear it. "It's not easy, being two things." Midna knew what he meant.

"It wasn't until afterwards that I began to wonder why- you were a friend, but, I mean, I hadn't known you much more than a few weeks. I suppose in the end it was just that I couldn't stand the thought of going on if you weren't there. The world without you-"

He swallowed. "When Ganondorf held up your helmet I knew that I would not survive the battle. I didn't particularly want to, either. Everything suddenly felt very- inconsequential. In the right circumstances winning stops being important. You know, I don't think I would have beaten him if I had thought there was anything to keep myself alive for. If I had been fighting for Hyrule he would have ridden me down on his way to power. Just like he did to Zant." The room was claustrophobic with ghosts. Link's hands grasped one another behind his back.

He was tense, thought Midna; he had been working too hard, worrying too much. She wondered when he had last slept through the night. She recognized his silence as the peace that comes over the battlefield on the night before the war starts. 

Link sighed. "I haven't asked you."

"I know."

"I don't know if I ought to."

"I know."

Hesitation. Link closed his eyes and saw, in the darkness, the Mirror of Twilight. The bridge stretched out before him in its concentric porcelain beauty. It was the night when he had first crossed the conduit that bridged the gap between the two worlds.

The sages stood atop their alabaster pillars, masked and bearded, inscrutable. At his side Midna was lost in horizontal depths of the portal that she thought would take her back to the life she had once led. Nobody was paying much attention to Link.

Should he take the step? But after all he had driven the Twilight out of the world, with Zelda in her palace as the only casualty- and the world went on turning, did it not? He didn't even know if the princess was still alive. What was it for?

Yet there was such a thing as duty, and anyways he owed it to Midna- without her he would have been dead a dozen times over, and the twilight would have surged as far as Ordon. If he turned back now it would be cowardice; worse, it would be betrayal. Far worse, it would be Midna.

If he took the step there might be no going back. The mirror had been broken once and for all he knew could be broken again; if it was no power in Heaven or earth would bring him back to the world he loved. His bones would be buried in soil no human hand had ever cultivated, under an alien sky.

If he didn't take the step he would lose her. 

Link closed his eyes and entered the Twilight.

"Do you love me?" he asked, and Midna fell silent. He heard the clink of pottery on stone as she rested the plate on the floor. He felt her presence in the air before him. He did not open his eyes.

Midna floated in front of Link, tears in her eyes. For the second time she was on the precipice between two possible futures. For the second time she was paralyzed. She had to tell him, could not tell him, and the paradox was tearing her apart.

"Link… I…"

Link had been wrong. No living being could be two things at once.

So she kissed him.

Her lips lingered, fractionally open, on his. No other part of their bodies touched. She could feel his breath, taste whatever it was that made him whoever he was on the salt of his skin. It was a promise, it was a surrender, and when Midna broke off and looked him full in the face his eyes were still closed and the astonished smile that lingered on his lips was daffily pleased. In that moment Midna knew that she could tell him.

"Oh," said Link, lost at sea. "So that's why."

"I love you," she told him. It was the truth.

They kissed again because, finally, there was nothing else left to do. 


End file.
